Water is one of the most abundant liquids on earth. As a highly stable liquid, all forms of life known to man depend on it for survival. For centuries man has dreamed of splitting this readily available liquid into its base components—hydrogen and oxygen in order to create a cheap, renewable, clean burning power source.
Several device designs exist that use electrolysis to generate hydrogen and oxygen to either replace or supplement fuels burned in internal combustion engines. Although each device has its merits, all have limitations based upon the high amount of energy required to chemically split pure water into its basic subcomponents to create gaseous hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2). Known apparatus and methods require either a device that is too large for practical use in personal travel vehicles such as cars, trucks, small planes, and motorcycles, or a device that provides inadequate efficiency and economic returns to offset the costs associated with implementing the devices in motor vehicles.
Electrolysis-associated issues include a loss of efficiency due to the generation of undesirable contaminants and reaction by products such as sediment from electrolytes, as well as decomposition and eventual destruction of the anode components due to oxidation and corrosion. The use of acetic acids and precious metals in known systems helps to mitigate the corrosive nature of electrolysis and its generated by-products, but also creates new problems with respect to safety, environmental concerns, as well as economic concerns of cost, thus making known devices impractical. Additionally, known systems that introduce zinc anodes as sacrificial components of the electrolytic process add unnecessary weight and cost while not significantly increasing the generation rate of hydrogen and oxygen gases.
By volume hydrogen is 22 times less explosive than gasoline; however its low flash point brings many safety concerns. Known electrolytic apparatus designs have attempted to deal with the low flash point issue by separating the generated hydrogen and oxygen gases until mixture inside the intake manifold of an internal combustion engine. However, these designs do not adequately deal with the hazard of an engine backfire, and the resulting potential of a flame manifesting itself all the way back to the gas generation system components.
All internal combustion engine fuels have varying degrees of volatility; however under the right conditions they are all explosive. Known fossil-fuel burning internal combustion engines have a fuel delivery system that maximizes safety while providing liquid fossil fuel to the engine for its combustion. To maximize safety and minimize undesired explosive potential of stored hydrogen and oxygen gases, a gas generation unit needs to have a short transition time and distance from gas generation to introduction into the internal combustion engine's fuel delivery system, thereby minimizing the risk associated with the transport of the generated gases.
Electrolysis itself is not new. The use of electrolysis as an electrochemical process for separating water into hydrogen and oxygen was documented in the 1820's by Michael Faraday. Today, nearly every high school and college chemistry class demonstrates Faraday's safe electrolytic method of generating and capturing hydrogen gas from water. Knowledge of the electrolysis process is necessary to understand how this invention incorporates electrolysis while not relying on it exclusively as a gas generation process. Applying an electrical potential across a pair of conductors that are immersed in water creates cations that move towards the cathode and anions that move towards the anode. Hydrogen ions (cations), have a positive charge and are attracted to the cathode where they accept an electron, becoming a neutral atom. The neutral hydrogen atom then combines with another to form hydrogen gas, H2.
More interestingly is what occurs at the anode, where a similar process is taking place. The anions are negatively charged hydroxide ions (OH—). When the hydroxide ion gets to the anode, it gives up its extra electron to the anode and combines with three other hydroxide ions, forming 1 molecule of oxygen gas and two molecules of water, as represented by the below reaction equation:4OH—→O2+2H2O+4e-
In summary, for every two hydrogen (H2) molecules freed from water, one oxygen (O2) gas molecule is freed and two water molecules are recombined. Note the four free electrons (4e-) that result in measurable current make the electrolysis process appear highly efficient; however the reaction at the anode results in the recombining of atoms to reform water molecules. Energy used in the recombining process can be defined as entropic energy in that it does not provide an additive effect to the desired process. Nonetheless, electrolysis is electrically efficient—meaning that very little energy is lost to the production of heat. Electrolytic processes exist that achieve electrical efficiency rates of close to 100 percent; however this does not measure the loss of energy used to recombine the anions into neutrally stable water.
Because of the recombining effect that occurs at the anode, electrolysis alone does not produce enough hydrogen to economically power an internal combustion engine. A catalyst is necessary to invigorate the electrolysis process without introducing too much thermodynamic entropy.
A well-designed internal combustion engine runs at less than 30 percent efficiency. The wasted energy is lost in the production of heat. Heat is a form of energy, and the present invention, seeks to capture the energy lost as heat in an internal combustion engine assembly for use in the excitation of water molecules to permit generation of increased volumes of hydrogen and oxygen gases by an electrolysis system. In short, the present invention recapitalizes an internal combustion engine's lost energy (in the form of heat) to improve the electrolytic energy conversion process and economically produce enough clean hydrogen and oxygen gas to supplement the fuel system of nearly any internal combustion engine.